flying

I watched Tolliver fly a small metal USAF plane around the perimeter of our yard a few days ago, watched him step from one flagstone to the next, buzzing his lips and moving his hand up and down through the air.
He is seven, but he seemed so small for a moment, lost in his own imagination. I felt, momentarily, like an outsider, like an admirer, watching him.

I love being his mom.
He tells stories like he's conducting an orchestra, hands stirring the space around him.
His bottom drawer spills basketball shorts like lava, his mouth spills sometimes, too. He is flammable gas, a brain constantly blooming with ideas, a mind on fire with opinions.
I mean, he can be intense. Like a mouthful of Pop Rocks - they’re great (he’s great) but you don’t want a whole mouthful of them at once.
He's known for, at our house anyway, a bit of a hair-trigger temper. Though where can you feel safe enough to rage if not at home? He knows we love him no matter what, and now is the time to try on big emotions.
For a fairly small being, he has mostly simple requests - Can we go to Target, May I have a playdate, Please let’s make root beer floats?

Several days ago I came downstairs to find Hank re-dressed. He wanted to match Tols, and they worked together to fold up his original outfit and find something that looked more like what his brother had on. (basketball shorts, obvi)

Tolliver is aware in ways that surprise me.
Watcha doin', buddy? I asked as he and the airplane made another pass by the patio.

His answer came swiftly, unreservedly, the way words leave children’s lips simple, sincere, before adulthood has learned to complicate the poetry out of them with considerations of reason and self-consciousness: Just flying.

I know, I think to myself, you are.